Michael
O'Brien became more famous for his photo than for the actual
streak. O'Brien, an Australian accountant, was in Britain
attending an England-France rugby match at Twickenham when
the urge to run came upon him. During the half time
break, he dashed naked before a crowd of 53,000, including
Princess Alexandra. Constable Bruce Perry took off his
helmet to cover O'Brien's dangly bits. "I feared
he would be mobbed, or that other people would follow suit.
I felt embarrassed so I covered him up as best I could.

"It
was a cold day - he had nothing to be proud of," Perry
said on the documentary Streakers. "I didn't
know what to say so I gave him the caution: 'You are not obliged
to say anything unless you wish to do so, etc etc' and he's
standing there, arms outstretched and he looked like Jesus.
So he turns around and says 'Give us a kiss' as loud as you
can."

The ensuing
photo became world famous. The Rugby Club in London
erected a statue by Walter Keethner, based on the shot.
It eventually appeared on greeting cards and billboards in
Britain, and in Australia Holeproof used it as part of an
advertisement in 1991, much to O'Brien's disgust. "[It]
implies I am in some way endorsing Holeproof products, which
isn't the case," he said at the time. The ad had
him asking the bobby for directions to a "20 per cent
off Holeproof underwear sale." In 1995, a British
telecommunications company used to photo to advertise that
phone numbers were having a digit added.

Having bet
a mate £10 that streaking would catch on in Britain, he decided
to help the cause along. "I quite honestly thought
I'd get to the other side of the oval, get dressed and disappear
into the crowd without anybody ever knowing it was me,"
he said in 1994. Instead, the photo ensured his place
in pop history. He was fined £10, and subsequently lost
his job with a London stockbroking firm, so little came to
him aside from a little slice of fame.

Robert Opel
caused a worldwide sensation when he ran behind an at first
oblivious David Niven at the 1974 Academy Awards in April of that year.
Niven recovered by making comments about the streakers "shortcomings."
Opel owned up to the act later. He was not arrested
for the incident, but was later found guilty of disrupting
a City Hall meeting in Los Angeles on October 3, 1974.
Attempting to get the council to back nude beaches, he "removed
his blue tracksuit and stood up nude... to prove, he said,
that 'nude is not lewd.'"

Opel,
an unemployed publicity agent at the time of the streak, went
on to open a sex shop, where he was shot to death in July
1979 during a robbery.

Michael Angelow
was possibly the first and most famous in a long tradition
of streaking at the cricket. Having consumed a few "cans
of Australian lager", Angelow raced onto the field at
Lords and athletically hurdled the stumps before being embraced
by the local constabulary. A shocked commentator said
"Well I've seen nothing like this at Lords before."
Australian cricketer Alan Turner is said to have roared with
laughter. The crowd loved it.

Angelow said
later he waited until the end of Lillee's over because "he
loves the game and didn't want to disrupt it."
The magistrate looked upon the incident lightly and fined
him only £10 - the exact amount bet against him by his mates.
Upon hearing this, his friends stood in the courtroom and
applauded, cheerfully paying his fine.

Australian
cricket captain Greg Chappell, never a fan of the fad, blamed
Angelow for the increasing interruptions by streakers at the
cricket. "There was a bloke who jumped the stumps..."
he said in 1996, "and all of a sudden it became a fashion.
And then everyone realised if you didn't give them any publicity
they wouldn't do it. It died a natural death after that."

Greg
Chappell was not known to stand back and let a streaker get
away with it. On several occasions he chased a runner
and made a "citizen's arrest" until the authorities
arrived. One of the first occasions was in Christchurch,
where he tackled a naked man who was attempting to get over
the fence, then "smacked him an admonishing blow on the
bottom. The streaker turned and grabbed Chappell's cap.
Chappell set out after him again..."

"I
took his hand and didn't let go," he said. "When
he realised the police were coming he tried to get away so
I gave him a whack or two to quieten him down."

During
a tense game, also in New Zealand, Chappell was batting when
a student, wearing only headphones, ran towards the stumps.
"I didn't know if he was going to try and souvenir a
bail or some stumps," he told the documentary Streakers.
"I put my hand out to shake hands with him, which he
accepted. I had my bat in my left hand and gave him a couple
of sharp cracks across the buttocks just to try and get him
to stand still. Finally the police got there and took him
away." Distracted by the roar of the crowd, Chappell
was run out the next ball.

The
streaker went on to charge Chappell with assault. "I
think what he did to me was worse than what I did to him."
He did, however, maintain that the crowd enjoyed the spectacle.

In another
incident, Chappell grabbed a trouser-less man by the hair,
and hung on for several minutes, marching him to the fence
to be arrested. Eventually, players were cautioned to
leave the nude invaders to the police. Legal advisers
warned that streakers could sue for damages if they were injured.

"Busty"
Erica Roe, 24, ran topless onto the Twickenham field during
an England-Australia rugby union, after taking a sickie.
"There's nothing indecent about my breasts," she
told a newspaper.. "Everyone loved them."
Her boss almost fired her, and she was promptly offered photo
shoots in girlie magazines. "My reputation is worth
more than that," she pointed out, although she did later
do some clothed modelling work.

"It
happened so quickly. Too quickly in fact, because if
I'd thought about it a bit more, I wouldn't have done the
streak. It happened so spontaneously - within seconds
I had unhitched my bra, thrown it to some guy behind me and
said 'I'll be back for that in a minute.'" Erica
told the Streakers documentary she streaked at half
time because she wanted to watch the second half.

"I
ran out and I had not thought about police or guards catching
me, or any kind of anger or irritation, just fun. And I didn't actually get very
far. All I remember was running as fast as I could with my
arms in the air and the crowd erupted. I assumed the
game had started. But when I looked around, my arms were up
in the air and I realised they were shouting at me.
And that was really fantastic. It was a good feeling.
I had a moment of really feeling what it was like to be the
Rolling Stones or Genesis up there on the stage. It
was marvellous!

"I
really can't give a straight answer as to why it happened,
except that I'd had a few beers and was a bit eccentric."

Just as Richard
Krajicek and MaliVai Washington were about to begin play in
the 1996 Wimbledon men's final, a 23 year old girl wearing
only a small apron distracted them. And everybody else.

Melissa
Johnson dashed naked across the lawn, pausing to "flash"
the Royal Box where the Duke of Kent sat laughing, before
being hauled off by a couple of Bobbies and given a stiff
talking to. Krajicek said it relaxed him. Washington's
response was the opposite. "I saw these things
wobbling around and, Jees, she smiled at me," he said.
"Then I got flustered and three sets later I was gone."
- From article in AWF.